Architecture of Bloom is a sculptural work that adopts the familiar form of the bench as its compositional framework. Referencing the disciplined geometry of modernist furniture while relinquishing any functional purpose, the work transforms a familiar typology into a sculptural exploration of architectural order and organic growth. No longer a place to sit, the bench becomes an object for contemplation, where the measured permanence of blackened oak is gradually overtaken by the quiet proliferation of individually cast bronze hyacinths.

Artist Statement

Architecture of Bloom takes its point of departure from the clarity of modernist furniture, in particular the disciplined horizontality of Mies van der Rohe’s day bed, and from the quiet benches positioned within galleries for contemplation. The form is archetypal: a place of pause, proportioned with architectural intent.

Hand-carved in oak, the structure is defined by weight and restraint. The surface is gently rounded, introducing a cloud-like softness that tempers its geometry. The oak has been blackened, allowing the grain to remain visible. A dark linear rhythm persists between the proliferating forms.

Across this surface, cast bronze flowers accumulate in dense formation. The chosen flower is the hyacinth, a familiar domestic emblem of spring commonly found in households and gardens. Through repetition and density, this recognisable form is subverted. What is ordinarily decorative and benign becomes excessive, exotic, even faintly disquieting.

Each flower originates from foraged plant material and is translated through the lost-wax casting process by the artist herself. Their multiplication becomes a gradual occupation of the timber plane, an organic counterpoint to the bench’s architectural order.

Oak and bronze operate in measured dialogue. The carved wood suggests endurance and structure; the bronze, traditionally associated with monumentality and permanence, is rendered here in fragile multiplicity. Between the flowers, the grain remains visible, reminding us of the underlying form and its original clarity.

Although it adopts the language of furniture, the work is conceived as sculpture. The familiar form of the bench becomes a contemplative object through which ideas of growth, permanence and transformation are explored.